Africa highlights monitoring and reporting systems as World Water Week begins in Stockholm

The need for action on the implementation the Sustainable Development Goalsas well as tracking progress on water-related SDGs dominated the opening plenary of the 2016 World Water Week which began earlier today in Stockholm, Sweden.

“It is time to turn commitment into action.”With these words, the Swedish minister for foreign affairs, Margot Wallstrom, reaffirmed the sense of determination that characterized the opening plenary. According to her, the significance of water issues stretches far beyond being just question about water but also about the potential benefits for women and girls, in terms of health aspects as well as freeing up time for school work and employment.

“I would very much like to see more men in developing countries take part in fetching water as that will start changing things and speed up development” Wallström added.

In his premiere address at the global water event, Engr Gerson Lwenge, Tanzanian minister for water resources and irrigation and President of the African Minster’s Council on Water (AMCOW) drew parallels between the theme of this year’s World Water Week, “Water for sustainable growth” and the outcome of the recently concluded 6th Africa Water Week which firmly established Africa’s roadmap to achieving the SDG-8 as well as other interlinking SDGs connected with water resources management and improved sanitation delivery.

“Our commitment to achieving an Africa where there is equitable and sustainable use and management of water resources for poverty alleviation and socio-economic development, regional cooperation and the environment remains unwavering and that is why we have established a Pan African monitoring and reporting system capable of informing policy and tracking progress on the SDGs in Africa,” Engr Lwenge said.

The AMCOW president who led a delegation of African water ministers to Stockholm declared that “Africa is already linking the monitoring and reporting processes from member-states to sub-regional, continental and even global levels to reduce the burden and duplication of monitoring efforts at various levels by making information generation, assessment and dissemination easy for all stakeholders in the continent.”

The Executive Director of the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) and organisers of the World Water Week, Torgny Holmgren, noted that 2015 was a year of several global decisions and agreements that will guide development efforts for decades to come.

“With a Sustainable Development Goal dedicated to water and sanitation, several other goals, which depend on reliable access to water to be achieved and also the Paris climate agreement, water will not only be an integral part of both mitigation and adaptation efforts but will continue to determine the parameters for inclusive, sustainable growth, full and productive employment,” Holmgren says.

Holmgren believes that this year is when efforts to put words into action start as all initiatives, large and small, from all actors, will need tobe considered.

“We must be open to unconventional alliances.We can only reach the goals we set for ourselves if we are serious about collaboration, about doing it together and breaking new ground. This is what I hope to see at World Water Week: the creation of new partnerships, the seeds for innovative solutions, the welcoming of out-of-the-box thinking,” the SIWI Executive Director added.

Angel Gurria, the Secretary General of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) touched on financing during his speech, taking the opportunity to introduce his organisation’s recent reports and initiatives, many of them addressing water financing. He also commended the lengthy work leading to water being recognised as a universal concern, most notably as part of the SDGs but stressed that agreeing on that something have to be done is far from satisfying. On what should be the next step, Angel Gurria declared: “implementation, implementation, implementation – although not necessarily in that order.”

Hosted and organized by SIWI, World Water Week in Stockholm is the leading annual global event for concretely addressing the planet’s water issues and related concerns of international development. The 2016 World Water Week which explores the theme “Water for Sustainable Growth” will end on the 2nd of September 2016.

Activities at the expansive Julius Nyerere international conference centre in Dar es Salaam hit a crescendo today as over 30 African water ministers and high-level delegations from 53 African nations adopted a roadmap aimed at achieving sustainable and universal access to safe water and sanitation all over Africa.

The adoption of the roadmap titled “the Dar es Salaam Roadmap for achieving the N’gor Commitments on Water Security and Sanitation in Africa” drew the final curtains on the 10th AMCOW General Assembly and the 6th Africa Water Week which began on Monday the 18th of July 2016 in Tanzania.

With a strategic objective of making considerable progress on water security and sanitation in line with the Agenda 2030 by improving efficiency, transparency and integrity within sector institutions to achieve sustainable services and create a conducive investment climate as well as integrating the agenda for water, sanitation and climate to improve health and nutrition outcomes, the Dar es Salaam roadmap aspires to ensure coherence in policy implementation, increase gender, equity and social inclusion, and transboundary cooperation in Africa.

African water ministers believe that by increasing transparency and accountability in the sector, governments across Africa would be able to account for financial contributions, focus on complementing existing initiatives with a view to avoiding overlap and redundancy and ensure a participatory environment for civil society and citizens in policy formulation, sector planning and monitoring.

The roadmap also recognizes the role of innovative financing and budgetary prioritisation for the water sector, sanitation and monitoring. Other aspects of the ministers’ plan of action for the continent’s water resources include provision of drinking water, improved sanitation, hygiene, effective and efficient management of wastewater, transboundary water resources, and strengthening Africa’s capacity to respond climate change.

The 10th General Assembly of the African Ministers’ Council on Water (AMCOW) which held on the sidelines of the biennal 6th Africa Water Week also witnessed a change of guards as the Water and Irrigation Minister of the United Republic of Tanzania, H.E Gerson Lwenge took over the reins of AMCOW presidency from his Senegalese counterpart, H.E Amadou Mansour Faye who held fort from 2014 – 2016 while Dr. Canisius Kanangire was officially unveiled as the new AMCOW Executive Secretary. Dr Kanangire, who hails from Rwanda, is the immediate Executive Secretary of Lake Victoria Basin Commission (LVBC) has over two decades of high level experience in water resources management and he succeeds Mr Bai Mass Taal who leaves AMCOW after 8 years of admirable leadership.

In his acceptance speech, the new AMCOW President expressed delight at AMCOW’s rotational mechanism which led to his emergence and he urged his colleagues to roll up their sleeves for the onerous but achievable task of ensuring the realisation of the SDG-6 in Africa. “We must build and sustain cooperation among riparian countries in managing transboundary water reources as it is a fact that the more we invest in managing water resources, the more we strengthen AMCOW and the more we advance collectively towards achieving SDG-6,” Engr Lwenge said.

To serve alongside the new AMCOW President are Water resources ministers from Central African Republic, South Sudan, Egypt, Swaziland and Liberia who were elected AMCOW Vice Presidents representing central, east, north, southern and west African sub-regions.

Addressing the General Assembly, Vice President Samia Suluhu of Tanzania urged the august assembly of water ministers from across the continent to “tackle present and future challenges by diversifying our sources of water and be innovative in financing mechanisms taking into account the huge funding requirements for the sector, and the urgency of mobilizing funds to put the right infrastructure and skilled manpower to develop and manage the sector more efficiently.”

Also speaking at Africa’s flagship water event, the commissioner for rural economy and agriculture of the African Union Commission, H.E Rhoda Peace Tumusiime implored Member States to step up efforts to realize the African Agenda 2063 on the ‘Africa we want’ because water is key to reducing poverty in Africa. “There is need for us to put in place sound policies, legal and regulatory frameworks to support investments from various sources in water, sanitation and hygiene and also promote gender equality and women empowerment,” she added.

Organised by AMCOW in collaboration with the Department of Rural Economy and Agriculture of the African Union Commission alongside regional and international partners, the 6th Africa Water Week represents a political commitment at the highest level for creating platform to discuss and collectively seek solutions to Africa's water and sanitation challenges.